The One That Got Away
by Lafayette1777
Summary: Taub was the lucky one. Or maybe he wasn't. One-shot, with some post finale and some seasons four and five. Revised and added to.


**Author's Note: Despite the title, this has nothing to do with the Katy Perry song. I just thought the phrase fit. Just a sad one-shot. At some point recently, I realized Taub was the only surviving member of the fellows picked in season four. I found this depressing, and along with the fact I'm never going to get over Kutner's death, got me to write something. The line "I try to do as little dying as possible." is from Matt Groening's _Futurama._ I couldn't help but use it.**

Amber Volakis is in a pristine white room.

_Sterile. _

Yes, that's the word.

It is not silent, though, and she has quite the headache. Which probably has something to do with the fact she's dying, and soon, by most standards.

James isn't handling this fact very well. She is in shock, combined with some sort of pre-death calm, and so she finds herself comforting him.

They come by one by one, those that were chosen over her. She knows they're not her biggest fans, but she appreciates the gesture. They don't want her to die alone. They respect her enough to show her that kindness. Kutner, Taub, Thirteen, Foreman. They say good bye.

Wilson doesn't leave, something she's glad for, despite her eerie calm.

When the time comes, he's not ready. He never will be, and she tells him this. He reaches out to switch off the bypass. Silence falls over the clean white room.

As the world fades, she can think of worse things then dying in his arms.

m m m

Cold metal is pressed against his temple. Every now and then the the barrel moves, as though of it's own volition, not just fidgety hands.

Lawrence Kutner swallows dryly, looking straight ahead into his living room.

Somewhere in his mind there is reason, lurking in the shadows, but he cannot find the energy to search for it. Not anymore.

He instead he reaches out to pull something happy from his memory. If this is going to be it, he wants his last thought to be a good one. He has to reach back far into the past to find anything. But he already knows that's the case.

He thinks about work first, of course, and goes back to House's elimination process, before he, Taub, and Thirteen had gotten the job.

Amber Volakis, with her long legs, and her nickname.

No, that just brings him right back to where he is.

_Everybody dies. _He thinks. _Seems appropriate. _

He shakes the thought off before it can grow.

Jeffrey Cole.

_Happy thoughts, dammit._

Jeffrey Cole's son.

_There you go._

Finally, a vaguely happy thought. Something not shrouded in darkness.

He thinks about the evening he spent with Brian Cole, then nine years old, while his father was out late. Kutner was basically a nine year old boy himself, so they bonded easily. As it happened, Brian was something of a Sci-Fi connoisseur himself. After a while, though, there conversation circled around to a shared love of elephants. Kutner promised to take him to the zoo some time to see them. It was not a promise he could keep, after the events of the week unfolded.

Happiness wears off too quickly. Sadness doesn't.

The gun next to his head is loaded. Always had been. His time is running out, patience of it's holder wearing thin. It's somewhere in the early in the morning, moonlight comes in through the window, but no other light penetrates his Princeton apartment. He knows it's time to let go.

_There better be something waiting for me on the other side._

The trigger is pulled, one shot fired by one hand of one person in one town on one day.

Over.

m m m

Two men are sitting on the edge of a motel bed in some city in some state, two pairs of eyes glued to a grainy television set. One of them is eating a package of crackers, despite his absolute lack of appetite and aching body.

"You know," Wilson says, nibbling on the edge of a cracker. "You need to start thinking ahead."

"Shut up." House replies. Neither tears their eyes from the TV.

Wilson rolls his eyes. "I'm serious. There's not a lot of time left, and you have to figure out what you're gonna do."

"I know what I'm going to do, mother, and shut up."

"Then what're you gonna do?"

House looks at him in irritation. "Exactly what you'll be doing."

He pats Wilson on the thigh and then limps for the bathroom.

It takes Wilson a moment to realize what the other man means. He shifts his body painfully toward the direction House had lumbered. He is about to yell a protest, then clamps his mouth shut. House doesn't have much left. He's basically already dead, legally. No job, no medical license, no more puzzles. Maybe it's better he end it with Wilson, instead of living without direction for a few more years.

Wilson scowls. Sinful thoughts, bad idea when he's so close to judgement. House without direction? Impossible. Selfish. It's not all about me.

But then again, House kind of has his mind made up. And he is stubborn son of a bitch, Wilson knows that better than anyone. Arguing may or may not do anything at all.

And, though Wilson feels cowardly to admit it, he feelst a whole lot more at ease at the idea of dying with House than dying alone.

m m m

A woman called Thirteen lies in a hospital bed. If she could stand, people would say she's on her last legs.

Her thoughts are gone, jumbled, foreign. So are her limbs. Late stage Huntington's Disease has put her in permanent residence at a familiar New Jersey hospital. She doesn't know why it's familiar. Dementia has made sure of that.

Sometimes people come by. They introduce themselves, again, and watch her writhe in her bed, then eventually leave. She notices, and then she doesn't.

She gets snapshots of a life before this plain white bed in this plain white building. They tend to be confusing, and often they are completely new to her.

A man with dark skin holding her hand...

Another with a cane saying that she needs to find out whether she has it or not...

A man with light brown skin smiling.

A short man crying on a bench outside an office.

Life slips away from her easily, in a quiet sort of relief. When she finally does close her eyes and succumb, she knows there's something waiting for her.

m m m

Taub is the lucky one, or maybe he isn't.

The only survivor is as much a curse as it is a miracle. Five colleagues have died since he came to Princeton-Plainsboro, and yet he's still here. Amber, Kutner, House, Wilson, Thirteen.

He knows he can't leave now. If he doesn't walk the halls they walked, maybe he'll forget about them. And that can't happen.

More differentials, more patients, more puzzles. He hopes that's what they'd want. It's a tragic group he came into. He's the only one that made it out. He won't pretend like it doesn't effect him. Survivor's guilt, they call it. Or maybe it's just grief.

Things are different now. New team, new faces he's grown accustomed to. They're in the middle of a differential, the three of them, one night, when he finds himself talking about something completely different.

"You know, this is the longest time I've been part of the one team that hasn't changed" Taub says. "A lot of times, it seems, people leave, or die, and I end up the only one left.

"So I'd appreciate it if you guys kept yourselves alive." He finishes. "I've grown to like working with you, and would like to be able to do it a while longer."

Chase and Park exchange a look.

"I suppose we're honored." Says Chase, only a little confused.

"I'll try to do as little dying a possible." Park replies resolutely.

Taub nods, and they go back to the differential, in the same way they always do.


End file.
